Do we ever question Linux?

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

And now that I‚Äôve scared away more than half of the viewers‚Ä¶

I wish that the Linux community‚Äìthe developers and the end users‚Äìwould spend more time asking simple questions, get some interesting discussions going‚Äîand to challenge what is considered to be the hard facts in Linux‚Äêland.

Instead of getting to ‚Äúthe right answer‚Äù or a conclution right now, let‚Äôs rather discuss the pros and cons about for instance having one software package format. Should the Linux Standard Base/The Linux Foundation standardize one?

This might seem scary, but remember that you‚Äôre already used to having one choice of certain components in Linux. There‚Äôs only one kernel and‚Äìas far as I know, only one X system (I don‚Äôt really consider rare forks, obsolete, outdated versions and such, as alternatives).

Another question, is the command line mode needed in 2009? Can the powerful grep, pipe, less‚Äêstuff be replaced by a snappy file manager with some filtered views? And why can‚Äôt Linux have a nice and smooth startup screen like Windows and OS X?

Why are there folders named usr, dev and etc in the file system? usr sounds like user, but it means Unix System Resources. dev could for a newcomer be mistaken for developer, etc sounds more like et cetera than settings etc. Aren‚Äôt Users, Settings and Applications more descriptive?

So these are the kind of questions that I wish there would be more discussions about.

Comments

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

And now that I‚Äôve scared away more than half of the viewers‚Ä¶

I wish that the Linux community‚Äìthe developers and the end users‚Äìwould spend more time asking simple questions, get some interesting discussions going‚Äîand to challenge what is considered to be the hard facts in Linux‚Äêland.

Instead of getting to ‚Äúthe right answer‚Äù or a conclution right now, let‚Äôs rather discuss the pros and cons about for instance having one software package format. Should the Linux Standard Base/The Linux Foundation standardize one?

Standardization isn't the answer to everything. it can create obstacles and impede improvement due to everyone trying to not deviate from the standard.

Now, if you think about it, RPM is the enterprise standard when it comes to package management. Red Hat, CentOS, Novell, Mandriva, and Oracle all use RPM. It's really Canonical that has deviated from the RPM standard in the corporate world. Does this mean that Canonical should be forced to change from DEB packages to RPM packages in the name of standardization? Why?

Should a community based distribution like Gentoo give up their Portage system to conform to the corporate RPM standard? If you have ever compiled software on an RPM or DEB based distro, you'll quickly find out that the package managers in these distros are unaware of software that you have compiled; thus to uninstall compiled software, it takes a lot of work and effort to hunt down and remove every single file that has been compiled. Gentoo may not be suitable for the normal user, but for developers, it's the best thing since slice bread.

This might seem scary, but remember that you‚Äôre already used to having one choice of certain components in Linux. There‚Äôs only one kernel and‚Äìas far as I know, only one X system (I don‚Äôt really consider rare forks, obsolete, outdated versions and such, as alternatives).

You can use BSD instead of Linux and end up with a similar system that is different, so it's not really one choice when it comes to the kernel. Even Debian now gives users the choice to change to a BSD kernel (http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/).

As for the X system, we don't have any real alternatives, but no one is being stopped from doing so either. If someone can make something better than the current X system, I'm all for it.

Another question, is the command line mode needed in 2009? Can the powerful grep, pipe, less‚Äêstuff be replaced by a snappy file manager with some filtered views? And why can‚Äôt Linux have a nice and smooth startup screen like Windows and OS X?

I agree that the command line should not be forced on users, but why should it be removed? Even in Windows, you can run "cmd" and run a terminal as primitive as it is.

As for the startup screen, try Sabayon. It has a very nice startup screen. Even in verbose mode, it is very graphical.

As you can see, your complaint about the startup screen is a distribution issue, and not a Linux issue.

Why are there folders named usr, dev and etc in the file system? usr sounds like user, but it means Unix System Resources. dev could for a newcomer be mistaken for developer, etc sounds more like et cetera than settings etc. Aren‚Äôt Users, Settings and Applications more descriptive?

They are named that way because that's how UNIX was designed, but there's a special distro that agrees with you and changes it. You should give it a try.

I do think that by having a standard package, desktop and everything everywhere would definitely help Linux get more users fast.

But the goal of Linux has never been getting all the users. Linus said that Microsoft going down is just a inevitable side effect.

Now, Linux is not just the kernel. Linux is not a full operating system. This community page is what Linux is. It is choice, anyone can create their own software adn use it in their own distribution. Anyone can decide they will not use a package manager at all. We are all working towards a common goan, but we all have our own approach. However, it is not good to force your approach to everyone.

If .rpm were everywhere, it would be a lot easier to hurt Linux by malware, because it works everywhere. It would be a sad thing for Gentoo, SourceMage and other source-based distributions, if they were forced to use .rpm. You do know that kind of feat, de facto package that is, is not going to happen without using force. There goes the freedom.

There is a different X system, Xvesa or something which is used by Slitaz and DSL. It's just stupid to think they are deprecated, old and a bad thing generally. Because of it, it's possible to create a really small distribution with full graphical desktop. Not to mention that there is a distribution for newbies that does not have any X at all. INX (INX is not X).

It is never going to happen. Only way to achieve that is to make package format so good that everyone wants to use it.

I declare this discussion old. It has been around for so long and it's just in vain. Not going to happen and we all know it.

There needs to be standardization for some aspects of the operating system. That being said, though, I would not want to see GNU/Linux become a one-choice/one-option ONLY operating system; for that I'll buy a Mac.

A great percentage of the joy I've gained from experimenting with this operating system is due to the variety out there right now. I think GNU/Linux will experience a bit of Darwin's natural selection. The strong will survive. The weak will lose community support and fall by the wayside.

Instead of getting to ‚Äúthe right answer‚Äù or a conclution right now, let‚Äôs rather discuss the pros and cons about for instance having one software package format. Should the Linux Standard Base/The Linux Foundation standardize one?

afaik they already have, rpm. While one package system does have pros , their are also downsides to this.

This might seem scary, but remember that you‚Äôre already used to having one choice of certain components in Linux. There‚Äôs only one kernel and‚Äìas far as I know, only one X system (I don‚Äôt really consider rare forks, obsolete, outdated versions and such, as alternatives).

As far as one choice goes this is not entirely true. Linux is the Kernel , everything else built on top of that are/is "software", "applications", or "daemons". The derivation of thisis left to the distributions , they roll out their version on how they want to "package" it

do you mean subsystem or desktops that build on top of that.?
xorg, XFree86, gnome, kde could all be considered X systems.

Another question, is the command line mode needed in 2009? Can the powerful grep, pipe, less‚Äêstuff be replaced by a snappy file manager with some filtered views? And why can‚Äôt Linux have a nice and smooth startup screen like Windows and OS X?

Maybe plugins/extensions for the different file managers could be implementated but in the end dont take the cli away , why alienate? The cli is powerful , and much needed. Also many different kinds of shells out their. Bash is just the most widely implementated. Startup screens are just eye candy in my opinion, their are programs out their that do exactly this. In the end though every distro basically does their own thing.

Why are there folders named usr, dev and etc in the file system? usr sounds like user, but it means Unix System Resources. dev could for a newcomer be mistaken for developer, etc sounds more like et cetera than settings etc. Aren‚Äôt Users, Settings and Applications more descriptive?

lsb standardized this a long time ago. Although certain distros use different ways of installing their packages . /usr/bin /usr/local/bin (as an example)

While these are some very good questions and critic , dont forget linux is about choice. I agree some things could make the "Desktop" better (because I will leave servers, appliances, and embedded stuff out of this) Even if lsb came with new set of standards the key distros would all have to follow it and want to work together (Ill just talk about packaging efforts here). I dont even want to know the time it would take to totally redo portage to rpm , or have canonical change to rpm. (isnt their already some kind of system for this though deb to rpm ? ) It just boils down to getting all the big dogs at one table and putting aside differences doing it, instead of having them all think that there way is best I guess, time will tell. Also lets please not try to make linux more like windows , they are 2 different OS's. I agree as far as functions go , should work across the whole spectrum , but if I like certain features of one OS more than another then I use that OS be it linux, unix, mac, windows whatever.

Another question, is the command line mode needed in 2009? Can the powerful grep, pipe, less‚Äêstuff be replaced by a snappy file manager with some filtered views? And why can‚Äôt Linux have a nice and smooth startup screen like Windows and OS X?

Maybe plugins/extensions for the different file managers could be implementated but in the end dont take the cli away , why alienate? The cli is powerful , and much needed. Also many different kinds of shells out their. Bash is just the most widely implementated. Startup screens are just eye candy in my opinion, their are programs out their that do exactly this. In the end though every distro basically does their own thing.

You are so not going to take my cli away. I do not need the eye-candy. The only thing eye-candy is useful for me is showing my friends how cool a desktop can be when you are free. I prefer going small and learning cli tools. Why would I need a fancy graphical interface for music player? Irc?

"like windows...."
well, the menu bar is unavoidably so, else we risk alienating linux from new users.
but that's where it ends for me.

command line?
unavoidable. in any os. any power user knows
it is too powerful of an asset.

standards <> exact sameness
nvidia and ati both implement radically differently in linux, but each is capable of stunning video performance
fluxbox, kde, gnome - get to the same point, sorta, but also are quite different in look, feel, and to a point, functionality
live cd - many distros, one goal - try before you, er, buy
so... standardization does not mean exact sameness

As an end user the fragmentation can be overwhelming, but I don't think that the entire answer is to try to standardize everything. The cli is still a very powerful tool to interface with the system and isn't something that should be done away with. In fact in Win7 M$ is adding more functionality to try to bring the windows shell up to par with the Linux cli. I think more attn needs to be focused on getting more user friendly interfaces for basic things like audio etc. (Especially audio considering how basic it is to a desktop experience and how horribly broken it can be) before we try to standardize everything

While it‚Äôs fragmented, there are some websites that are more popular than others; and some are first choices for many of us for searching (Google), communicating (Facebook, Twitter), general knownledge (Wikipedia) and videos (YouTube).

While we love these sites, we wouldn‚Äôt feel comfortable about someone above deciding that Google should be the standard search engine of the Internet. While it wouldn‚Äôt prevent other search engines from existing, it doesn‚Äôt encourage competition, which hurts innovation.

Let‚Äôs go back to the package manager and the discussion about standardizing. I don‚Äôt know all there is to know about them, but at least I know that there‚Äôs a difference between a package manager and its package format‚Äìor an application and its data, to use more general terms.

It seems to me that package managers share the same goal; to manage packages‚Äìor‚Äìto manage software. Installation, removal and updating of software. Just like web browsers are different, I think it‚Äôs cool that package mangers do the implementation a bit different‚Äîbut wouldn‚Äôt it make life in Linux‚Äêland five hundred percent easier if we all agreed upon a single package format?

Maintainers wouldn‚Äôt have to exist, and time could be better spent figuring out how to distribute packages in more effective ways, such as BitTorrent. What do you think?

I rather like the command line interface. Why not keep it around? Apple does this as well in Mac OS X without any drawback. For some tasks, the CLI is just better. But for those who aren't competent with it, Linux can have a good GUI.

I use the GUI for some tasks, CLI for other tasks. It's all good.

I use Kubuntu which has a great startup screen. I think this critique point may depend on which distro you're using.

While it‚Äôs fragmented, there are some websites that are more popular than others; and some are first choices for many of us for searching (Google), communicating (Facebook, Twitter), general knownledge (Wikipedia) and videos (YouTube).

I wouldn not call webs "fragmented", there just is a lot of information, and a lot of crap.

It seems to me that package managers share the same goal; to manage packages‚Äìor‚Äìto manage software. Installation, removal and updating of software. Just like web browsers are different, I think it‚Äôs cool that package mangers do the implementation a bit different‚Äîbut wouldn‚Äôt it make life in Linux‚Äêland five hundred percent easier if we all agreed upon a single package format?

Exactly what kind of problems do you have with packages? There are a lot of source packages, .debs and .rpms. We all can tell them apart easily and the others are not so widespread.

How would standardizing the package format help your life at all, not to mention by 500%? I would still just apt-get my software with debian-based systems, and with source based systems I'd just compile it with or without package manager.

The reason why that standardthingy would not do what you think it would, is basically because people would still need to publish their source packages too and newbs would still get confused thinking if they should download that .stnrd or that .tar.gz. The harsh reality being that the newbies should not download anything at all if they do not know what they are doing, so it's not a bad thing they get confused.

Maintainers wouldn‚Äôt have to exist, and time could be better spent figuring out how to distribute packages in more effective ways, such as BitTorrent. What do you think?

I call that propaganda. Debian for an example, seems to have quite strict packaging requirements. They would not just take any package they get and add it in repositories, but they would need to see if the package has been made like it should be. Maintainers would still be necessary.

Packages with BitTorrent? If I make a package and want to share it, I'll just create a page in the webs for it. I do not have a bittorrent server running 24/7 for making sure people can get or even see my package if it's not yet well known and wanted and has nobody seeding. Web page is the simplest way.

//edit And you need to upload 64bit packages too, which doubles the confusion. And soon ARM's and maybe others...